Shooting ban causes rift in East Bay Park District and state agency

HAYWARD -- A ban on duck hunting on open Bay waters within 150 yards of regional shoreline trails has stirred a state-versus-local-power dispute over public safety and waterways.

The East Bay Regional Park District reaffirmed its ban Tuesday despite protests by a state agency sympathetic to hunters' wishes to shoot ducks along the shoreline in the Hayward Regional Shoreline park.

Regional park operators say it's unsafe for duck hunters in boats to fire shotguns less than 150 yards from shoreline trails in the park district.

But duck hunters and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife say the park district overstepped authority to restrict a navigable waterway.

The park district has the authority to ban hunting on park lands. But the public -- including hunters -- have a right to access San Francisco Bay waters and park wetlands connected to the Bay, state officials say.

"This is a protected constitutional right," said Lt. Sheree Christensen, a warden supervisor with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. "Duck hunting is a tradition hundreds of years old."

State officials said state law already bars hunters from shooting "on or over" public roads or trails. That ban, they said, makes the park district rule an encroachment on state authority.

Park officials disagree, saying the state law isn't strong enough to protect Bay Trail joggers, hikers and cyclists from duck hunters who would to come close to the trails.

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Several shoreline trail users agreed.

"I would be concerned about personal safety," said Michael Smith of Hayward, a regular shoreline trail jogger. "Most of the hunters would do the right thing, but if there is no 150-yard boundary and the ducks aren't where they want them to be, the hunters are going to go to the ducks."

Francisco Gomez, a Hayward resident, said the duck hunters should steer clear of a shoreline trail that people use to enjoy nature and wildlife.

"I come to enjoy the wild animals and birds," he said, "not to hear or see them get shot."

During its review of its safety rules Tuesday, the park district board made one concession to hunters. It dropped a ban on hunting in the Oro Loma and Cogswell marshes, located within Hayward Regional Shoreline, after the state complained the two areas were navigable waterways.

In both marshes, though, hunters cannott fire within 150 yards of a trail, park police said.

Mike Case, a duck hunter from Morgan Hill, said the park district's no shooting zone illegally deprives hunters of their rights to use navigable waterways.

During the fall-winter hunting season, Case said, hunters would like to bring their boats near the Hayward shoreline and use the levee as a "blind." Hunters, he said, would point their guns away from the trail.

Case said other areas along South Bay shoreline trails have been hunted for years without injuries to trail users.

Besides, he said, duck hunters go out in cold, rainy early mornings when trails are empty or sparsely used.